Due to some technical problems, which I won’t go into here, next week’s Tune It Or Die! was published last night instead of the correct one, albeit with the illustration for today’s column. I forthwith present the correct column, which, as the Gentle Reader may appreciate, is the more appropriate one given today’s anniversary event. I’ve deleted everybody’s comments, the necessity for which I apologize, but you’ll get a chance to comment again when “Overloaded” returns next Wednesday. —JLW

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN CRIMINAL COURT

by Rob Lopresti

It was exactly 100 years ago today that one of the greatest writers in American literature hopped on a fast comet and got out of town.

So let’s celebrate a little by considering one of Samuel L. Clemens’ last adventures with crime. My information comes from Michael Shelden’s recent and excellent book Mark Twain: Man In White.

The new home

In 1908 Mark Twain moved to what he hoped would be his last residence, a mansion that had had been specially built for him in Redding, Connecticut. Twain had refused to look at the plans, or visit the site, wanting the house to magically appear as if a genie had granted a wish. Fortunately he declared himself well-satisfied with the lovely house on a hill.

He named it Innocence At Home and began inviting a steady stream of visitors. He also got involved in his rural community by leading the movement to build a public library (and donating hundreds of books from his own collection – see Monday’s New York Times for a hilarious report on some of his criticism found scribbled in the margins).

But his bucolic paradise only lasted two months. Then scoundrels as vicious as the Duke and the King in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, but a lot less amusing, arrived to trouble his retirement.

A rude awakening

On the night of September 17 Mark Twain’s longtime secretary Isabel Lyon was awakened by a loud crash. “I thought at first it was a swinging shutter, but it was followed by a second noise, as if something had tumbled off a table, and I decided that something was wrong.”

She found the French windows in the dining room open and discovered two men looting the sideboard, which they had carried outside.

Her scream woke everyone. The butler arrived with his pistol and fired at the robbers. They escaped, carrying away the silverware engraved with the maiden name of Twain’s beloved late wife. The thieves could have probably searched the house for days without finding something of more sentimental value.

Deputy sheriff George Banks led the hunt and caught up with the burglars on a train. One of them, Charles Hoffman,, managed to jump off, but Banks shot him in the leg.

The other, Henry Williams, shot Banks in the thigh. When the passengers pulled the emergency cord Williams fell to the floor and two railroad workers beat him into surrender. It was a hell of a morning commute.

Enter the master

As I wrote in my first piece about Shelden’s book, Twain was a master marketer. He did not want the dominant storyline to be “Frail Writer Terrorized In Own Home” so he worked hard to make sure it was “Feisty Writer Confronts Hapless Thieves.”

When the bad guys were being observed, bandaged and handcuffed, by a crowd in town hall, Mark Twain marched up to them and demanded: “So you’re the two young men who called at my house last night and forgot to put your names in my guest-book?”

Later that day Twain entertained reporters at his house and showed them a note he planned to post on the front door:

Notice. To the Next Burglar.

There is nothing but plated ware in this house, now and henceforth. You will find it in that brass thing in the dining-room over in the corner by the basket of kittens. If you want the basket, put the kittens in the brass thing. Do not make a noise – it disturbs the family. You will find rubbers in the front hall, by that thing which has the umbrellas in it, chiffonier, I think they call it, or pergola or something like that.

Please close the door when you go away.

Very truly yours

S.L. Clemens.

Last words

In an attempt to scare burglars and win back visitors Twain announced that he was installing burglar alarms and ominous warning systems. He also changed his home’s name from the vulnerable-sounding Innocence At Home to the more intimidating Stormfield.

And speaking of comets as I did at the start, you may recognize that name as belonging to the hero of Extract From Captain Stormfield’s Visit To Heaven. After his death the Captain raced with a comet and that jaunt led him so far from the part of heaven he was supposed to reach that the man at the gate had never heard of Earth.

He got a balloon and sailed up and up and up, in front of a map that was as big as Rhode Island. He went on up till he was out of sight, and by and by he came down and got something to eat and went up again. To cut a long story short, he kept on doing this for a day or two, and finally he came down and said he thought he had found that solar system, but it might be fly-specks. So he got a microscope and went back. It turned out better than he feared. He had rousted out our system, sure enough. He got me to describe our planet and its distance from the sun, and then he says to his chief.

“Oh, I know the one he means, now, sir. It is on the map. It is called the Wart.”

A typical bit of Twain humor there, mocking the vanity of what he called the Damned Human Race.

But we are better off for having had him as a member.